69 Further Investigation of Inherent Existence

Olaso. So as you may have surmised … surmised [repetition], I’d like to begin a little bit before the session with the return to the text. And first of all, correcting a mis…, a mistake [repetition] that – I believe – Roger Jackson made a mistake, and then I corrected his mistake by making another mistake [laughter]. So this is back, um, in my text it says page 50, but I’ve messed around with this text an awful lot. Uh, it’s back to that citation, that quote from the Bodhi – The Way of the Bodhisattva, or A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, uh, he says “Thus”, just before the, just two lines, “Thus in meditating on the lack of self of persons, it is necessary at the outset to identify the object of negation,” if you can find that, I’ll make a correction. It’s an important one, because I really got it wrong, and I think Roger did as well. Uh, and why I feel confident that the translation I’m going to give now is correct, I went back to the translation my wife and I did – she’s an outstanding Sanskritist – and checked it in context and checked the Tibetan and so forth and it became very clear that the translation we had there was correct even though I had modified it a bit.

[1:21] Um, but the other two were wrong, so if you found it? [audience members speaking over each other] 29? Good, good yeah yours is different and I’m looking at a very altered Word text [referring to Microsoft typing program], Word document. So page 29 in yours: “Thus in meditating on the lack of persons” can you see it? Ok, good, prepare to correct. So, and correct the correction, because I just entered just another mistake.

[1:55] So here’s what I believe is a very close and accurate translation from the Bodhicaryavattara and that is “without detecting the imaginary entity,” [repeats] “without detecting the imaginary entity, its non-existence is not apprehended.” And then he continues with his commentary “if the object of negation is not identified…”

[2:22] So this one actually makes really good sense, while neither of the two previous two – Roger’s earlier one and my correction – actually made sense in this context. And the reason for that is, there’s a Tibetan term – and just this is technical stuff, but for Anna, for Glenn, anybody else here who can read Tibetan – there’s this word takpa, which can mean “investigate,” it can also mean “impute,” and it can also mean “to completely speculate or project.” And they’re all correct, but then which meaning is it? Well that all depends on context, because it’s the same term, although the Sanskrit doesn’t necessarily have that same ambiguity.

[2:54] So without being in touch with – but I’d just say “detect” because that’s really what it means here – the imaginary entity is something that you’ve completely projected that isn’t there, ok? So, the silly example I gave earlier is useful just because it’s so silly and easy to understand. If I’m delusionally thinking that I am Napoleon – the actual Napoleon Bonaparte – then I’m thinking there’s someone here: Napoleon, that’s me, start saluting. And so that’s the object of my delusional self-concept (I’m Napoleon). Well the Napoleon who is here, is a fiction. It’s a complete projection, right? Now my grasping onto that, thinking that I really am Napoleon: well that’s real! That’s a delusional state of mind, but the object of that delusional state of mind (Napoleon, who is here) doesn’t exist at all. But to my delusional mind, it sure does, you know?

[3:48] And so that’s the imaginary – and this is a silly example, or analogy, yeah analogy – Napoleon here is the imaginary object. So without detecting the imaginary entity, and that is, without detecting the imaginary entity as an imaginary entity, and that is recognizing it as such. So if I have therapy from dear Katalina, you know I’m suffering from this psychosis, she would show me first of all that in fact there is no, there is no Napoleon here. She’d show me there’s not a shred of evidence here. So I keep on grasping onto it, grasping onto it, but she persuades me not to just stop thinking that, like the boy who thought he was a kernel of corn. Because that just suppresses it, ready to pop out at any catalyst. Because he still thinks he’s a kernel of corn. He’s just learned how to manage well. Whereas if Katalina can show me unequivocally, beyond all doubt, there’s no Napoleon here, then I’ve gotten in contact with, detected, gotten in touch with – that’s the term – the completely fictitious nature of Napoleon here. Having done so, then without doing that, I cannot apprehend its non-existence. Without seeing the fictitious nature of Napoleon, I cannot apprehend the absence of Napoleon, here in this person, ok?

[5:07] Now, silly example, but it’s very easy, isn’t it? It’s kind of nice, because it’s so silly and so obvious. And now, we take this to this massive barrage of analysis that Tsongkhapa and his great followers have presented, inspired by Chantakirti, Shantideva, Nagarjuna and so forth, and they say ok, there was a silly example, here’s one that’s not silly: grasping onto my self as being inherently existent. You know? And so what does that mean? I exist from my own side, I already am, before I or anyone else thinks about me, labels me, conceptually designates me. That’s all fluff on a really existent self that has a body and mind, and I really have a body and mind. So that self is the Napoleon. We can take it very seriously.

[5:57] When we say things like “Who do you think you’re talking to?” [Laughter and comments from students] You like that one! “Hey! Hey Beatrice who do you think you’re talking to? I’m a PhD from Stanford, I’ve been teaching 40 years, I’ve published 40 books! Who do you think you’re talking to?” You know. And woo! Sorry! Sorry! I didn’t know your ego was that big! You know. [laughter] So that comes up, you know, when we’re insulted, when we’re praised, when we’re – the classic one Tibetans love is when we’re falsely accused. “I didn’t do that! How can you accuse me? I, I would never do that!” You know ai, boy, it’s coming out like you can put your finger in it like the Pilsbury DoughBoy. Oink Oink. [laughter]

[6:46] Right. So that’s what he’s saying. When you see it’s, without seeing that it’s fictitious, you cannot see its total non-existence. Now, the classic method, as all of you, the good good good Gelugpa scholars know here, is this is the first thing you identify, and then you just bring out the heavy artillery of one type of analysis after another: parts and whole analysis, analysis by way of dependent origination, analysis by way of causality (is this self born from itself, others, both or neither) and you just kind of, you just intensely bombard it, maybe one will be sufficient, maybe you’ll just bring in the whole flotilla of Nagarjuna’s myriad reasonings and the Mulamadhyamakakarika, and just blow it off the face of the earth, you know. This is the approach of philosophers. This is the approach of people who are very skilled in reasoning and logic, are good at it, they trust it, and they know how to use it like a surgeon uses a knife. And it’s worked. It’s worked. It may not be one’s own cup of tea. But anybody who thinks that the Gelugpas have just been, you know, just flapping their gums, just talking, talking for the last 500 years, well, got that one wrong. There are many who are simply debaters, they’re good teachers, but there have been people like Gen Lamrimpa, one of my own teachers, Geshe Rabten, Geshe Ngyawang Thaygye, Geshe Wugying Setten, the list goes on and on. These are formidable meditators. Son Rinpoche: formidable meditator. Pure Gelugpa. Formidable. I mean, he was a siddha. He visited here, the Tsongkhapa institute.

[8:12] So you know, if you have that kind of powerful intellect, and you’re good at philosophizing, and you’re drawn to it and you trust it. You don’t think “Oh that’s just intellectual mumbo-jumbo.” If you have that, then this doesn’t work for you. Not because it’s no good. You’re no good at it. And we tend to deprecate things that we’re not any good at. We do. It’s a general tendency. So, that’s the –

[8:32] But now he sets this forth and he refers to this as a, you know, highly trained Gelugpa, um, but what I find so interesting here is that he doesn’t do that – it’d be so easy for him just to take that lock, stock and barrel from the classic Gelugpa literature, Tsongkhapa and the great adepts after him, Gal Genduden Tugpa on Tsongkhapa’s right, Kidupche on his left, two brilliant, his two principal spiritual sons. He could’ve just drawn that and put it right in here. But he didn’t, and that’s what I find interesting. He didn’t do it. You see it later on. He doesn’t say “Now hold that object of negation in mind, and now apply…” He doesn’t do it. He alludes to this. He acknowledges it. But then, when he’s ready for guiding you in meditation, he cites his own root text first of all, and this is where we go now. And I’m doing a little bit of repeating here, because I’d like, I’m going to front-load the next meditation with Panchen Rinpoche himself. He’ll be your guide. Front-load it, so you can do this in silence.

[9:37] Back to the root text, where it says 29, and then “from within the foregoing equipoise.” Can you find it? Anybody give the right pagination? 34? Thank you. 34. 30? Ok. “From within the foregoing equipoise, you should like a minnow swimming.”

Who’s found it? [audience speaking over each other.] One person say. 30? Page 30, thank you. Page 30. Ok

[10:22] So there’s his root text? But you see, this is not… This is not drawing on a high-powered, detailed, complex analysis. He is, this is the contemplative route. So I mentioned this morning ways of developing bodhicitta. One is by the religious route, you know by having very deep confidence in infinite previous lives and so forth and so on. And then there’s the contemplative route, which is another route, right? Where you’re tapping into, and I’m not going to give this morning’s talk all over again, it went on long enough already, but going deeply into that realm of your own existence that is just pure and lovable. And knowing that’s your ground state. So that was the whole gist of the morning’s talk.

[11:04] So there’s the kind of religious route and then there’s the contemplative route to come to the same thing. And I would not say one is better than the other. It’s not better to be a contemplative than a religious person, or a religious person than a philosopher. But this is what makes this tradition so immensely rich. Because some people are very very gifted philosophically. Others have very deep devotion, very deep faith. That’s a virtue. It’s often scorned by people with very superficial minds. Really, very superficial minds. They deserve compassion when they scorn religious faith. Too bad for them. And then there are those who are contemplatively gifted. And this is really designed for the contemplative route. People who are taking very seriously what he said, “go for the shamatha and achieve it.” For everything that follows here, is for those who may or may not spend 20, 25 years to become a geshe, or a khenpo. But they may spend 20, 25 years in contemplative practice, achieve shamatha. Who knows which is going to be faster. To become a geshe, earn that degree after 10, 20, 30 years? Or put in whatever time is needed, however long it is, and work through all the barriers, all the challenges, all the upheavals, to actually fully achieve shamatha.

[12:16] I can tell you with a great deal of confidence there are a lot more geshes than there are people who have achieved shamatha. But I can’t say with certainty that either of those routes – the geshe will often take 20 years, khenpo 15 years – I can’t say with certainty that it would take longer to achieve shamatha. But there’s not a whole lot of emphasis, so that’s what I’m seeking to – following the words, the guidance of my own teachers – trying to encourage this- here’s another route for the contemplatives.

[12:44] And also, if you’re middle aged, or for that matter if you’re not fluent in Tibetan, your chances of becoming a geshe are zero. There’s no geshe training for people who don’t speak Tibetan. You could have an 8 year master program, or 6 year or whatever it is. But it’s not the same. How long is it? How many? [Audience member answers] 14? Master’s program, here? No no no. [Audience member speaks] Yeah. Seven. But that compared to a geshe? There’s no comparison. No comparison. And nobody, there’s no false advertising here. And so here it is. So here’s for the contemplative route. And so, just to read this very briefly, but this is going to be front-loading the next session.

[13:25] So let’s, we have our guidance for the next session come straight from Panchen Rinpoche. Because he’s offering guidance here that is very rare to find. You won’t find just like this. I’ve not found, in the straight Kagyu, Nyingma literature on vipashyana, on the nature of mind. I know that material rather well. Gyatrul Rinpoche gave me marvellous samples of it, I think were very representative. Here this is something quite exceptional, and I think I’m very deeply impressed by it. So “from within the foregoing equipoise,” your best approximation. But if you have the opportunity in this lifetime, why go for an approximation? Why not just go for it and achieve shamatha and change the world? So “from within the foregoing equipoise, you should like a minnow swimming in limpid water without disturbing it,” so you know what that is, tiny bit of commentary because I’ve commented already.

[14:16] You’ve achieved shamatha or something, you know, your closest approximation, and you’re resting there, having settled your awareness in its natural state. But rather than simply resting in shamatha, you’re poised there with a question. You get there with shamatha, you move beyond shamatha with a question. And that is, “analyze wisely with subtle awareness.” Well, the subtle awareness is that substrate consciousness. Using this very refined, supple, malleable, stable, clear, luminous awareness, “analyze wisely,” that means discerningly, intelligently, “with subtle awareness the manifest nature of the person who meditates.” So this is very interesting, “the manifest nature” does not mean look for the sheer absence of your inherently existent self. That’s a very different thing!

[15:13] Well, your manifest nature is, well we’ve looked at that a lot! Right? And one could say -because often in Tibetan, the singular and plural are not clearly distinguished at all - this could be “manifest natures”, right? Because you appear to yourself in so many ways, sometimes very strongly associated with your gender, sometimes not. Sometimes it’s the age, sometimes not. Your ethnicity, sometimes not. Your height, your intelligence, and so forth and so on, and not. You know? And so just observe as you’re resting there, you’re going to sit down in the cinema of your awareness and then you watch the 3D cinema of your mind, and see how you manifest. How you manifest. You know? But analyze the manifest nature of the person who meditates. The agent, the observer, the one who’s doing the practice. This is quite remarkable.

[16:07] And then his brief commentary, and then we’ll just go to the practice I think. “Thus without wavering in the slightest from the previous equipoise, that is settle single-pointedly in serene concentration,” or samadhi, so you know that we’re really talking about awareness of awareness here, just resting in awareness. “As for example a minnow swims without disturbance in the midst of a lake full of limpid water.” So you’re coursing through that, you’re posing the question but without disrupting the equipoise, you don’t bring in a bunch of thoughts and analysis and noise to disturb the waters, you know? You just, the minnow swimming through the water doesn’t disturb it, but sees through that clear water. You’re seeing through the clear space of your substrate consciousness, and you’re watching the show. What comes up?

[16:59] So you’re resting there and basically we’re now using as a platform ‘settling the mind in its natural state’, but not settled there, not satisfied there, just seeing appearances come up and then watching them go away. But seeing appearances, how do you appear to you yourself? How do you appear to yourself? What comes up? Manifest nature. You observe that, and you analyze it. So first of all, observe it. Well, you’ve gotten your feet wet with this one, you’ve gotten all prepared with the shamatha he gave you earlier: taking the mind as the path, the mind onto the path right? So you get accustomed to that. Resting in the stillness of your awareness and observing the myriad appearances that arise, but now we’re being selective. We’re not just looking equally interested in any appearances that arise in the space of the mind, but rather those appearances that are clearly manifestations of you. Appearances of you. Right?

[17:57] So it’s like – don’t want to get too wordy here – but earlier attending to the whole space of the body and whatever sensations come up, but selectively focusing on those sensations correlated with the breath. The other one’s background, this is the foreground. So these are the ones you select out, but then you don’t just watch them, because that would still be just shamatha. Then you analyze. And how do you analyze? He says, well here’s how: “from within that equipoise, you should analyze with subtle consciousness the manifest nature of the individual or ‘I’ who meditates in concentration,” who is resting there in samadhi. And now here it is, you’ve heard it before, but I’d like to make it crystal clear, as he does. Its way of existing. The manifest nature: how do you exist? How are you present? You, the meditator: how are you present? Its way of appearing to the intellect or the mind, either one would be fine. How do you appear? And then, as you conceive of yourself – because this is what it is. As you conceive of yourself, you think: I am – a thought spontaneously comes up – I am, I want, I remember, I feel, I… I…

[19:06] Whenever that comes up, see how you apprehend yourself. See how you conceive of yourself. Observe that process. How you conceptually designate yourself. “Analyze all this subtly and astutely with a precise and discriminating mind.” So you’re really bringing in not only mindfulness and introspection, which of course is the, you know, the two faculties you use for shamatha, but you’re bringing in prajña. You’re bringing in prañna, you’re bringing in wisdom, you’re bringing in discerning intelligence. It’s the same term: prajña goes for discerning intelligence and wisdom. “And when you analyze thus, you see that the way of abiding of an individual” – how are you present, an ‘I’-person and so forth of all phenomena – “is merely nominal” – merely conceptually imputed, merely designated – “as a snake is imputed on a striped rope, or a person is imputed on a cairn or a pile of sticks.”

[20:04] This “cairn and pile of sticks,” or for that matter the “snake on the rope,” these are very very important for the following reason. It’s really simple. And that is, a striped rope is not a snake. It’s not a little bit snake. It’s not, it doesn’t have a little sign on it saying “please call me a snake.” It’s just not a snake at all, right? But we can falsely impute, we can impute “snake” on it. But there’s no snake there, right? And then, similarly, a cairn, a pile of stones: that’s not a person at all. It’s not suggestive, there’s nothing from its own side in any way inviting the designation of “there’s a person over there!” Or likewise, what was the third one? A pile of sticks. So a scarecrow. A scarecrow kind of looks like, but there’s nothing in the scarecrow, in its wood, in its hat and so forth, the carrot, the nose and all of that, that is actually a person. Those are kind of easy. But in the same way, that’s why he’s giving these analogies, in that flow of consciousness, you’re resting there in your awareness, in that flow of consciousness, that flow of cognizance and luminosity: there’s no person! It’s not a person. It doesn’t say “person for sale,” it doesn’t say “please call me a person” any more than a football or a car.

[21:31] If you want to really push this. Have you ever been in a garage, one of the big garages with lots and lots of cars, and somebody says “I can’t find your car do you see where your car is?” And you say “oh yeah I’m right over there!” Ever heard that? Yeah. Or “beep beep” “Ah! I’m over there!” [laughter] The basis of designation of you – because we actually say that – not just “that’s my car over there” but sometimes we’ll say “oh I’m over there!” Right? And you can find other examples. You’re not a car! [laughter] Unless you’re a cartoon car, you’re not a car at all. But we say that! And we don’t think “oh pardon me I misspoke.” Well it’s a basis of designation. “Oh yeah there I am!” And you can find many other examples like that. And if you’re not a car, the absence of you in the car is equal to its absence of being your car. If you correct yourself, you say “of course I didn’t really mean that, I’m not crazy, I’m not a car or a kernel of corn, I’m not Napoleon either,” you know if you try to backtrack on that, and you say “what I meant to say was: My car is over there,” there’s nothing over there from its own side that is your car.

[22:50] There’s nothing there. You may as well point to a lamp post, or the sun, or to an ant. They’re all equally not yours. They’re yours only because you designate them as such. And then conventionally, in a manner of speaking, “yeah I’m over there! Yeah that’s my car!” Tomatoes, tom-ah-toes.

[23:14] So you see what he’s doing. He’s saying just watch it, rather than trying to hold in mind, the deluded mind and its object, which is very good for philosophers, very good for, frankly, for people still working out of a coarse mind. Because if you’re working out of a coarse mind, this is very hard. And in the geshe training, I don’t think you get any training in this. I went, you know, pretty, somewhat, down that road. Not even remotely do you get this kind of training. You’re too much too busy clapping your hands, and you know, clapping, and clapping your hands a lot more, and memorizing texts, and reading and reading and reading, preparing for exams and so forth. It’s a full time job. Let alone all the pujas and other things you need to do. They don’t have time for this. It’s a different training. It’s like being an engineer versus an artist. It’s just a different training. This is a different training. But this is good if you’re starting when you’re 50 or 60 or whatever. This you can do. Start right now to try to become a geshe? Not going to happen. [laughter] It’s more likely you’ll achieve shamatha than you’ll become a geshe in this lifetime. Take my word for it. This you have a chance at. Become a geshe? Don’t think so. [laughter] Circumstances aren’t there.

[24:32] So here it is. I’m going to front load this so I can be quiet. So try to remember this. This is the front loading, and it’s his, and it’s really quite amazing. He’s truly fusing the intellectual horsepower, the might, the intellectual acuity of his Gelugpa training and bringing this right into this radically empirical stream of the Mahamudra where it fits. Where you feel that this is really Gelugpa firepower here, but it’s being brought into a stream where it’s just radically empirical, and watching very closely. As were his two methods of the shamatha: radically empirical, those two methods, yeah? And so here’s what we’ll do: settle body speech and mind of course, come to the culmination of that, and then resting there in that stillness. Rest there for a little while. And see if you have any sense of “I am meditating.” Very simple. If you have a sense of “I am meditating.” Not this image or that image. But do you have a sense of being someone, meditating. And if you do, how do you manifest to yourself? What comes to mind, right? Manifest nature. And if sometimes you think “this practice is going well, I’m doing it well”, there’s the word “I”. So keep on the alert for the word “I” when it crops up, either kind of semi-consciously, deliberately, or it just comes up all by itself. “I”, you know? When that one comes up, then look for the referent. What are you referring to? How are you manifest when you say “I”? “Oh my mind’s wandering”: ok who? “I’m the owner of the mind, my mind’s wandering.” Ok who? How are you manifesting, right? What’s abiding? What’s abiding that you will say, quite rightly, that you are meditating – maybe sometimes sloppily, with excitation and laxity – but you were doing the practice for 24 minutes. You were doing that all the way through, right? So what was there all the way through, that gives you, quite rightly, the basis for saying “I meditated all the way through, faulty but of course, but I did, I did my best job,” right?

[26:46] Manifest. And then especially when you just relax and don’t cut off, do not cut off thoughts, images, memories and so forth, but when they do arise, then appearances of yourself – as a woman, a man, younger than you are now, and so forth and so on – appearances may very well arise. And it could be very very diverse, right? So see how the appearances come up. And then finally, and this is the crucial one – they’re all crucial but this is equally crucial – in this very simple, and radically empirical analysis of the self, of one’s own self. Then when you do have a sense of your self-concept, you’re apprehending it, you’re having a sense, you’re having a feeling “I am,” you have an awareness, a self-conscious awareness “I am”: “I am meditating, I am distracted, I’m getting dull, I’m getting lax, I’m getting bored, I’m getting stressed, I’m getting tight, I’m getting frustrated, I’m getting blissful and satisfied, I’m realizing rigpa.” You know, whatever comes up, you know! Examine how you apprehend yourself ok? It’s simple.

[27:57] And of course whenever we say that it’s simple in the Mahamudra/Dzogchen tradition, you know it never means easy. But it does mean simple. Doesn’t mean complicated, ok? So let’s jump in. Please find a comfortable position. And I think I front loaded it enough, so then we can just have it in silence.

[meditation not included in recording]

[28:17] So returning to the text, that was his instruction, right there. Um, right to the point, he says ‘just watch’. And watch how you conceptually designate yourself on a basis that isn’t you, any more than a striped rope is a snake. And that goes also to the circumstance that I think you all experienced in this last session, where nothing particular is coming to mind. Sometimes you’re just resting there and there’s not much happening. But you don’t feel “Oh my god I’ve vanished, I’ve fallen into a void, I’ve become non-existent,” you know? You probably feel pretty relaxed, I hope so! And so, what’s that lingering sense of “I” when you’re not being insulted, you’re not being praised, you’re not being falsely accused, just kind of humming along. That way of abiding. And I would suggest – here’s a proposal – that what is continuous there is just that flow of mental consciousness upon which you’re designating “I am the meditator.”

[29:21] A flow of consciousness is not a person. Beata is a person. Amy is a person, right? You have a head, you have arms, shoulders. Your consciousness doesn’t. So consciousness is not a person, and you’re not in the formless realm. Human being. But on the basis of that, that flow of consciousness, you can designate something that wasn’t already there and is not to be found in the flow of consciousness itself. And that will get very interesting very quickly. But you watch, rather than doing high-powered analysis – which is very very powerful if you have sufficient training – but this means, this is why you know – I say “clap your hands,” well actually they’re doing something very serious there. They’re spending up to eight hours a day working through all their qualms, working through all false conceptions, working through all lack of certainty, lack of clarity. For people like Renata [a participant] a philosophical mind with a lot of questions, a lot of qualms, a lot of doubts: good! You can either follow that route, but that means you need training. You need training. Renata is not the only one. Glen has been through a lot of training, Anna’s been through a lot of training. So people who get that, then qualms do come up, questions come up, uncertainties come up, objections come up. That’s all good! But if you’re following that track, then roll up your sleeves because there’s a lot of hard work to be done.

[30:43] Because however intelligent – I’m going to say this, it’s my opinion – however smart you are, and some people are very smart, I don’t think you’re a match for Tsongkhapa. That’s just my sense. I don’t think you’re as smart as he is. Sorry! I don’t think you’re as smart as Nagarjuna. Whatever you come up with, don’t think that Nagarjuna hasn’t been there first. [laughter] And don’t think he “oh gosh, you’re white, you’re a Westerner, I never thought of that because I’m a pre-scientific person!” Don’t get your hopes up. But this is a way where it’s not saying throw out all qualms. It just says do the research. Before Galileo, people were debating back and forth, back and forth, back and forth: is the sun in the center, is the earth in the center? Or Tycho Brahe had a kind of a mixture of not-quite geocentric, not-quite heliocentric, and they debated, debated, debated, and they’d have learned a lot of mathematics, a lot of astronomy. They debated, debated, debated. They came to no consensus. And then Galileo came along and saw the phases of Venus. All the discussion stopped. Anybody who was informed stopped. Not because he was a better debater. He found empirical evidence that made the Ptolemaic system clearly false, and that was the end of the discussion. For anybody who was informed there was no more discussion after that.

[32:04] For anybody who is informed, this terminates the discussion. When you see for yourself how you designate yourself into existence, and this self that is so designated has nothing more than a nominal existence, of the same status as the fact that this cell phone is mine. There it is. So now let’s return. So he gives these various analogies, so we’ve seen this before. How do we move on. “You see things as the Tathagata sees them.” And then, we move ahead in the text. And I’m going to give, just give, I’m going to re-read that last paragraph briefly. But it’s good to see “how does it turn out?” because we’re not the first people doing this. So looking down below right to the last paragraph that I read. “Thus when you examine with a subtle consciousness” Where is it? What page? 33. Good. I’m going to read that paragraph really quickly so you can see where you’re going. Yes, this is leading the witness. It’s leading you to liberation. That should be ok. It’s not leading you to get all the right answers in the exam. It’s leading to liberation.

[33:08] “And so thus when you examine with a subtle consciousness from within equipoise.” He keeps on highlighting that point: if you don’t have equipoise, then really you can’t do this practice. And that’s a different type of training than getting a PhD in Buddhist philosophy, or getting a geshe or khenpo degree. “When you do so, you yourself appear such that not even an atom exists,” not even a trace exists of the individual or self or person who’s resting in equipoise. If you try to find some kind of a nuclear, atomic self, ego: nowhere to be found, of the person who is resting there. All of a sudden there’s emptiness. When you look for that, all of a sudden emptiness. When the generic idea of that clear vacuity is clear in your mind – so you’re accessing this insight into emptiness initially by way of an idea. That gradually fades out as you go deeper into the practice. But when that generic idea is clear in your mind, then without further mental elaboration, not bringing anything to mind, you rest in single-pointed equipoise. Just go deeper there. We’re back to the analogy of that glowing ember. Ok you’ve found the right place, you’re on top of the snow-cone? Ok now just sit there and melt right through. Just rest there with clarity, acuity, stability, a sense of ease, and just burn right through. You burn right through the generic idea, to an unmediated, non-conceptual realization of emptiness. Ok? And that’s the idea.

[34:40] But of course, he’s going to say it, I think. I think he’s going to say it. “If your apprehension of that clear vacuity,” which is a simple negation, a sheer absence of this kind of self-existent self, if that weakens a bit, weakens a little, you know exactly what that is. It gets vague, nebulous, you’re not quite sure you’re ascertaining anything after a while, because you’re just sitting there with a blank mind, “then meditate single-pointedly from within equipoise” – so he’s assuming you’ve got shamatha here – “examining as before” so rev up the engine, analyze again, investigate again until you see the sheer absence of you as an independent entity, self-existent entity. “That is the way to maintain the mind in space-like equipoise. It is taught that when you first ascertain things in this way, if you’re not already familiar with the view, fear will arise,” fear of self-annihilation, that you’ll never be able to come back. But if you are acquainted…

[35:36] And then as I’ve mentioned before: if you’re living a very self-centered life, maybe you’re extremely smart, philosophically astute and a really good yogi, but if you’re bringing in a lot of ego into this practice, a lot of self-centeredness, a lot of “me first” attitude, contrary to the bodhisattva ideal. If you’re bringing that into it, then this “I” that you’re so cherishing – “me first, I, I’m so precious, I’m something special” – then if that’s still coming into the practice, then you can be afraid. Because that which you’re clinging to you’re taking refuge in your substantial sense of “I am”, well that’s going to be kind of a shock. Because what you’ve been prioritizing doesn’t exist at all. So that will be fear. But if you are acquainted with it, if you’ve been practicing relative bodhicitta, practicing the other five perfections and so forth, then joy will arise. So the same insight can give rise to fear in one person, and joy in another. So that brings us up to where we were two days ago.

[36:34] So that was for meditative equipoise. What do you do when you’re on the cushion engaging in this practice, right? But now you come off the cushion. So what do you do in the post-meditative state? “To demonstrate the features of post-meditation, it is stated” – so now this is all, this is for everybody listening by podcast, people listening here, um you know? Even people here I think by and large, nobody is spending more time on the cushion than off the cushion during the 16, 17 hours a day that you’re awake. So what to do? How to fill that time? That you’re really taking full advantage of this time, this ideal setting. What to do in between sessions so there’s complete continuity, a seamlessness of your practice on the cushion and off. So he goes to his own root text. He says “just as an individual does not really exist” – “really exist” means truly exist, inherently exist – “because it is an assemblage of the six elements.” Ok? He used shorter terms here. As you well know, it’s not the case that you’re identical to the assemblage or the composite of six elements, but rather something conceptually designated upon them. But you do not really exist among them, as their composite, or apart from them.

[37:47] So but now he’s going to unpack this himself in his own commentary. He says “when you arise from equipoise and analyze what appears” – in terms of your own self-appearance – “there’s no individual” – for you, since you’ve gained some insight here – “there is no individual that mistakenly appears due to being in the grasp of the demon of ignorant thought that there is a quintessence.” We’ll pause there. So when you’ve seen this, when you’ve seen the absence of this inherently existent self, this simple negation, when you rise from it, you’re not like the little boy that just stopped thinking he was a kernel of corn and then just slipped right back into the pattern, but in fact you’ve seen it doesn’t exist. So then when you’re out walking, drinking tea, talking with people and so forth, there doesn’t arise this sense of this, kind of, this reified sense of self. That appearance of self doesn’t occur because you’ve seen through it. You recognize you’re not Napoleon, you’re not a kernel of corn. You recognize you’re not an inherently existent self. What does appear, he says “but rather a mere conventional individual” – or person or I – “is definitely there.” So he’s showing here you’re not falling to an extreme of nihilism, coming out of meditation and then thinking “I don’t exist at all.” Which of course is, you know by the very phrase “I don’t exist at all”: it’s gibberish! Because if you don’t exist at all, you can’t say “I don’t exist at all”. Something that doesn’t exist, doesn’t say anything! So you know that has to be crazy.

[39:19] And so, you’re not falling there. You’re not falling back into your own rut. You arise, but then with the sense of being merely nominally there. Only a name. Only a conceptual designation, like: this is my cell phone, this is this, this is this. Or within the context of a dream, recognizing that people call you by name in the dream and they say “Are you here, are you here?” And you say “Yes I’m right over here!” And you know perfectly well that there’s no real self over here. But within the context of the dream, this makes perfectly good sense. It’s conventionally valid. But without grasping onto yourself as being really there. So you’re definitely there, but you’re not in the grasp of the demon of reification.

[40:05] “Its way” – “its way,” that is, YOUR way – “its way of existing is like that of a person imputed upon a cairn or a snake onto a rope.” And that is, we do this all the time: “I’m a grandpa, I’m a son, I’m a spouse, I’m a teacher, I’m a student, I’m a translator, I’m a customer, I’m a patient, I’m a driver” and the list just goes on and on and on, right? And they’re all correct, and for each of those is a different basis of designation and different context. But it’s just a manner of speaking. I don’t have multiple personality syndrome. I think that happens when we, when this sense comes up and you reify all of them. That’s my sense of multiple personality disorder. You have what everybody else has, but then you reify everything. So if somebody says “Are you there?” You say, “Which one?” [laughter] “You talking to me? Or me? Or me? Or me?” So…

[40:59] But of course I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m not a psychologist. “So having produced a consciousness ascertaining that an individual” – so-called individual – “is a mere name imputed on a mere collection of one’s own six elements or five aggregates,” a mere sign. A mere imputation of thought. A mere not-really-existent – I like the way he translated this – a mere not-really-existent dependent arising. Dependent arising? Ok. Dependently related event that is empty like an illusion. “Meditate with certainty.” In other words, you’ve got it, and now familiarize yourself. Get into that flow and let it completely saturate your mindstream. So you’re a “not-really-existent dependent arising.” That’s nice. Not really existent: you know exactly what that means.

[41:44] And now I’ll just unpack something. This is straight Tsongkhapa. It’s really quite brilliant. What exactly does it mean, “dependently arising,” in this context? It’s quite straight forward. I would just say it’s very deep, and that is, alright, any person here, Kirsti, is a sequence of dependently related events empty of inherent nature. What does it mean to say that Kirsti is a dependently related event, or a dependent arising? What it means is, she’s a person, and so in three ways, three ways, is she a dependently related event or sequence, matrix of events, none of which are really her, right? First way: Kirsti arises in dependence upon prior causes and conditions. No Kirsti mama, no Kirsti papa? No Kirsti. Just for starters. But then there’s a lot of causalities. No food for the last 30 years? No Kirsti. And then all the other cooperative conditions coming in. If they weren’t there, she wouldn’t be here. She would not, she would be, you know, Kirsti rest in peace and now, you know, something else. So prior causes and conditions, very straight forward. There’s a dependence. You wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for prior causes and conditions. That’s straight forward.

[42:54] Then Kirsti has a body, has a mind. Take away Kirsti’s body, she’s not there, there’s no more Kirsti. Kirsti’s in the bardo. Kirsti’s dead. She lost her body. It got trashed, it got mutilated, it got killed, whatever. Then Kirsti’s not there. They say on the debating courtyard, there’s no such thing as dead people. Dead human beings? By people we mean human beings. They say there’s no such thing as a dead person, because if you’re dead you’re no longer a person, as in human being. [Alan laughs] So there’s nobody in there. Rest in peace? Forget about it. As soon as you’re dead, you’re not a person anymore. So there are no dead people. If you say “I see dead people”, no you see dead bardo beings. [laughter] Well you see LIVING bardo beings, but there’s no such thing as dead human beings, because if you’re a dead human being, you’re not a human being anymore. So.

[43:43] But as a live human being, Kirsti has a body and a mind, right? Of course they’re entirely different. I mean, they’re profoundly interrelated, to be sure. But I can see Kirsti’s body. I can’t see her mind. And when she looks at her mind, she can’t see her body. So it’s quite clear that they’re not identical. Take away any one of them, Kirsti’s no longer there. And so these, very simply put, are her component parts. Body and mind, right? She’s not identical to either one of them individually, or the collection of both, nor does she exist separately from them. But if they weren’t there, she wouldn’t be here. So that’s dependence upon your constituent parts and qualities, ok? It’s a simultaneous dependence. The first one is sequential, dependent upon prior causes and conditions that gave rise to you. But now that you’re here, if you didn’t have your various qualities, your parts, then you wouldn’t be here. But you’re not identical to those parts. So this is all making pretty good sense. First one is straight science. Science does that kind of causality all the time. Philosophers look into these mereological sums, and that is, qualities upon which – the solar system has so many planets, the sun, and so forth and so on – it “has,” and then we have the relationship of parts and whole. They’re called mereological sums. So that’s the second type of dependence. That’s pretty well known, and kind of really can’t doubt it.

[45:00] The third one is the subtle one. The third one’s really the subtle one. And that’s what he was getting at in the preceding meditation. Kirsti would not exist independently of the conceptual designation of Kirsti. If Kirsti didn’t do it – Kirsti could be in a coma, she would not be designating herself at that time – but her friends would, her parents would and so forth. They would be designating her. But if there’s no one anywhere that’s designating Kirsti, Kirsti doesn’t exist. If there’s no one designating a Higgs boson, it doesn’t exist. It’s designated on the basis of a basis of designation. A Higgs boson is designated upon a basis of designation that is an array of qualities that are not a Higgs boson. No one of those qualities is a Higgs boson, the collection of the qualities is not a Higgs boson, the Higgs boson is designated, imputed, projected upon a basis of designation that is not a Higgs boson. Never has been. The interesting point, and I could linger here a lot and I won’t, but what’s really really interesting about this is that could sound like “Oh you mean you just trashed the whole Large Hadron Supercollider, you’ve made a mockery of modern particle physics and so forth.” No I haven’t. One of the teachers that I studied under in Switzerland was one of Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey’s root gurus, Geshe Urken Seten. Geshe Urken Seten. Lived to over 90, well into his 90’s I believe. He was the abbot of the monastery in Switzerland before Geshe Rabten was appointed there. Brilliant scholar, but it turned out he was really quite a formidable meditator as well. And he was renowned to be a real master of Madhyamaka. People who knew him, said “Oh this man, boy does he know his Madhyamaka.”

[46:42] So I had the good opportunity to translate for him teaching Madhyamaka in Switzerland back in the late ‘70s. And so he told me, when I was a monk and serving as an interpreter, he said – and I think maybe I had read The Tao of Physics and I had a little bit of interest in physics. I don’t know, but somehow out of the blue, or out of his clairvoyance or whatever he said, he told me back in about ‘78 or so, he said “Alan, as we study Madhyamaka, as we investigate Madhyamaka, we are not refuting the existence of elementary particles; we’re not going to chime in and say ‘Hey you physicists, I have a different opinion about Higgs Bosons, they don’t really exist, stupid’, you know, no! We’re not challenging the existence of Higgs bosons.” If they have really good solid empirical evidence, based upon superb technology, incredible mathematics and so forth, we’re not going to just come lumbering in and say “Uh uh!” No they do exist. They exist relative to that conceptual framework, relative to that system of measurement. But the interesting part? The really interesting part is that once you have designated a Higgs boson on the basis of this very superb research and the specific data that led you to confirm the hypothesis “the Higgs boson does exist,” relative to that cognitive frame of reference, Higgs bosons have been around for the last 13 plus billion years.

[48:06] It works retrospectively. And they will be around, from this cognitive frame of reference, even if an asteroid hits planet earth and wipes us all out. From this cognitive frame of reference, they will exist for billions of years in the future, Higgs bosons. Right? That’s interesting. And they will exist in other remote regions of the universe that we’ve not explored yet and don’t know anything about. Higgs bosons exist, right now, they exist there too. Right? So with one designation, upon one designation, then it’s like sheet lightning and it goes through time [makes a ‘woosh’ sound] and it goes through space [makes another ‘woosh’ sound]: now the universe is populated by Higgs boson and it has been for billions of years. From the perspective, or relative to this cognitive frame of reference. Independent of this cognitive frame of reference – so I’m going to come to a question, ready? Here’s a cognitive frame of reference. It’s called elementary particle physics, it’s called the standard theory? Where’s Philipe? Where’s Philipe? Philipe, where are you? There you are. Standard theory? Standard atomic theory? [Philipe answers ‘model’] The Standard Model! Standard Model. Ok. I mean it’s really an incredibly brilliant model that makes sense of this myriad of elementary particles, correct? Yeah. So it’s an outstanding model, and it’s been tested, and its value, its rigor has been tested in many many ways. Empirically, mathematically. By brilliant minds. These are all true statements.

[49:44] Relative to that cognitive frame of reference, this Higgs boson now – it seems beyond all reasonable doubt – they do exist. But here’s the question: independent of that cognitive frame of reference. Ready? I just said, relative to that they have existed since, for billions of years they will exist, they exist billions of light years away and so forth. Independent of that cognitive frame of reference, do Higgs bosons exist? [audience members answer ‘no’] Philipe, independent of that cognitive frame of reference, do Higgs bosons exist? Are there any dissenting views? [Philipe answers ‘we don’t know’] [audience laughter] Good! I can do you one better, but that’s a step in the right direction. Linda? What’s your thought? [Linda: I think yes, but don’t ask me to say why] I would probably just stop right there. [Laughter] Ok but maybe you’re right. But, I actually, I’ll give you an answer that is closer to, closer to yours Sebastian than “no.” Independent of the cognitive frame of reference, which means the whole language matrix, all the language that’s embedded in the Standard Model, independent of that, the word ‘Higgs boson’ has no meaning.

[51:20] I’ll ask you a similar question, and I’ll ask – eeny, meeny, miney, mo, Who am I going to pick on? – John! John! Give me your best shot here. Serious question. You ready? Fribbles. Fribbles. F-R-I-B-B-L-E-S. Fribbles. Do they exist or not? [laughter] Your fate may hinge on this question. Do fribbles exist or not? [John: Yes they do] Boy he’s gullible! [laughter] Why do you say that? Have you ever seen one? [John: No I haven’t, but you’ve, uh, you’ve put out Fribbles, whatever it is, and there must be something…] You know too much about my language. I put out fribbles as meaningless noise, having no referent in reality. Because not I or anybody else as far as I know has ever defined fribble. It’s just a [Alan here makes a series of mouth noises – snorts, whistles, pops, etc – that are not words] It’s like that. Do [mouth noises] exist? [laughter] That was complex language! It was actually a very complex mathematical formulation!

[52:38] The word has no meaning. That’s why I chose fribble. Because it has no meaning, it has no definition, it has no referent, because it’s just noise. It’s like [snort]. It’s like that. And so to ask whether fribbles exist is a meaningless question. And independent of the cognitive frame of reference of the Standard Model, if you ask do Higgs bosons exist, you may as well ask, “do [mouth noises] fribble exist?” It has no meaning. Because the whole meaning of Higgs boson is all embedded inextricably in the Standard Model. Throw out the Standard Model, it’s just [mouth noises]. Nothing! So you can’t say it doesn’t exist. It’s like saying, “I’m sure fribbles don’t exist.” Ok! Show me the evidence. If one smacked you in the head would you know it? So this is the, this is the … we could linger there but, um, won’t.

[53:33] So, “it’s a mere name imputed” or “mere collection of one’s own six elements,” “imputed on a mere collection of one’s own six elements or five aggregates, a mere sign, a mere imputation of thought,” “a mere not-really-existent dependent arising”: those three ways. Kirsti’s dependent upon prior causes and conditions, without which she wouldn’t be here. She is right now simultaneously dependent for her very existence upon her component parts and qualities. And she is dependent upon the conceptual designation “Kirsti.” And Mary Kate, if you’ve found a definition of “fribble” I’m just going to run screaming from the room. [laughter] Ok. So we continue. A merely not – so, you see, three modes [laughter] – if somebody’s put it in the Oxford Dictionary “the great scholar Alan Wallace has defined ‘fribble’” I will completely refute it. [It’s a drink at Friendly’s] What’s that? [It’s a drink at Friendly’s] Really? Well they stole it from me! I want copyright. Copyright infringement! [laughter] Thank you for telling me. I have to fish around then. I’m going to stick with [snorts and whistles] I don’t think that’s a drink at Friendly’s! [It’s also a frivolous person] A fribble, F-R-I-B-B-L-E. [A frivolous person, thing, or idea] Dog gone it! They snatched it! [laughter] I just tried to find something meaningless, I couldn’t come up with it! Gosh! Ok thank you! I’m not going to use that. I’m going with [snorts whistles]. [laughter] You’re not going to find that in the dictionary! Spell it! Ok, from now on, no more fribbles. Aah, they do exist! And what did you say, John? You said they do exist! You were right, I was wrong. Geez, humiliated! Nice work! [sighs] [laughter]

[55:26] Ok “this is also to be remembered through the profound songs in the sutras. The King of Concentration sutra, the Samadhiraja Sutra says ‘an illusionist creates imaginary forms, various horses, elephants, and chariots.’” Back in the good old days they would do that with [Alan whispers Tibetan terms to jog his memory] samadhi, mantra, and some physical substance. And the combination of those three, they could conjure up images. Like this yogi in the south of Bhutan, conjure up a leopard and a deer. Those three. So it’s high contemplative tech. And you could see it three dimensionally, just like David Copperfield. He needs millions of dollars to create his illusions. The yogi can do it with, number one that’s the hard one, is samadhi. Anybody can write a mantra. And I checked out the substance, it could be like a stick or a stone. Nothing special. No kind of esoteric substance. So that’s what he’s talking about. So you create the illusions of various horses, elephants, and chariots, “just as they do not exist in the way they appear.” They appear to be really there from their own side. Well they don’t. They don’t exist in the way they appear. “Their appearance is misleading. So you should understand all phenomena.” And he’s going to continue in this. They’re nice metaphors.

[56:34] “Just as a young woman in a dream sees her son being born and die, is happy when he is born and sad when he dies, so should you understand all phenomena.” So her sadness and her happiness, as real as it gets. But the son at whose birth she rejoices, and at whose death she is saddened, has no existence whatever. Just an appearance. “Just as the moon’s reflection at night appears in water that is limpid and unmuddied, yet the moon’s reflection is empty and unreal, ungraspable, so should you understand all phenomena.” It appears, and I love this analogy, because the reflection of the moon in the water has causal efficacy. It does things. You can photograph it. Right? If you hold a newspaper up to it – here’s the reflection, you hold the newspaper – you might be able to read the newspaper by the reflected light of the moon in the water. And if there’s – there’s nothing down there. And the fact that the image – this really blew my mind when I first discovered this when I was twenty – but the image of the moon in the water is about 237,000 miles beneath the surface of the water. Hmm. Yeah. I mean the image – when you look into a mirror, and the mirror is two meters away, the reflection of you is four meters away. Two meters behind the surface of the mirror. Bring out your camera lens and it will verify that. That’s when the image is in focus. Not the surface of the mirror. Two feet behind the mirror. If you’re two meters in front of the mirror, the image of you that you see crystal clear, is two meters on the other side. But then if you say “Oh good I’ll look” and you go behind the mirror and you want to see your reflection from the side – well that’s trying to look at a rainbow from the side.

[58:32] But a rainbow has causal efficacy, even though it’s not there. There is – and then, so if it’s two meters, two meters, then if the moon is 237,000 miles up there, the reflection is 237,000 miles down there. Not even where the moon is. So you know with that reflection there isn’t anything at all, and yet you can photograph it and it has causal efficacy. It’s very cool. “Just as at noon in the summer, beings are tormented by thirst, and travelers see mirages as bodies of water,” the water seems to be really there, you can photograph it, but of course there’s no water there, “so you should understand all phenomena. In a mirage, no water exists but deluded sentient beings desire to drink it. There cannot be drinking of unreal water. So you should understand all phenomena. Just as people cut through the waterlogged trunk of a plantain” – plantain tree, like the banana tree – “because they desire its core, though inside and out there is no core, so you should understand all phenomena.”

[59:42] So it’s this fundamental incongruity between the way phenomena appear and the way they actually exist, and that’s the theme there. And so for yourself, as you examine yourself, there’s an appearance of self and there is no self where you’re looking. Just an appearance. And yet, the self does have causal efficacy. You are meditating. We’re not denying that. It’s not that you don’t exist at all. So this is how you try to carry this through. As you engage with people – you walk down the street, you eat, you talk, you answer email and so forth – watch the sense of self that arises. Now much more interesting, much more dynamic, much more engaged, more causally effective or efficacious when you’re doing all the stuff in the world. Especially people listening by podcast having a lot of things to do as soon as you finish the podcast. Then watch how you arise, and watch how you arise like, YOU arise as a mirage, reflection of the moon, and so forth. Arising, and yet wherever you think you are there’s no [Alan misspeaks] there’s no I to be found. You’re an illusion.

[1:00:46] So Atisha, who is also said to be a previous incarnation of this Panchen Rinpoche, at the end of his section on ultimate bodhicitta, he starts with [Tibetan sentence], the very first line of the ultimate bodhicitta teaching – and this is all pith instruction – he said “View phenomena as if they were dreams.” And then he goes through very very very much Mahamudra-like, radical empiricism, focusing right on the nature of the mind. Right? And then he finishes with meditative equipoise, and in one, I think, one line he said: Alright, now what do you do in the post-meditative state? Right? Before he goes into bodhicitta, tonglen and all of that. One line. He begins with “view all phenomena as if they were dreams,” and he ends [Tibetan sentence], “in between sessions, act as an illusory being.” As if you were an illusory being. As if you were just a sheer illusion. But a really cool, virtual reality, high-tech illusion. So if somebody reached out to touch you, they’d actually have tactile sensations. And they can see you of course, and they can hear you. But they can actually touch you. This – I’ve spoken with a world expert on virtual reality. I’m going to meet with him next Saturday. And I suggested to him something, because I can see. A lot of people see. I’m just tagging along. This is going to be the next big big wave. It’s going to be a multi-billion dollar industry of fantastic escape from reality.

[1:02:15] It’s going to be massive entertainment. Virtual reality. And I suggested my friend – he’s at the Scuola – that they’ll probably, they’ll have something like this, won’t they: something like a wetsuit, a full skinsuit that you put on. But it’s not a wetsuit of course. It’s a really high-tech skin, so that when you put on whatever you put on, the helmet or whatever, and you’re in this 3D world, and you can see, and you can hear, if you reach out to touch someone in this complete virtual reality, you’ll feel the tactile sensations. Because of this full suit, this full skin, high tech skin. And so you reach out. Well, you can imagine the pornography industry; they’re going to love this. [laughter] But you can be windsurfing, you can be climbing high mountains, you can jump out of airplanes, you can do all kinds of things. You know. All in fantasy realm. Right? And then you really are – and he speaks them as being avatars. They speak of avatars, where you can project this. This is right now already occurring, and it’s only going to get really better really fast. You can be participating in conferences that are thousands of miles away. You can project your avatar, and you can be walking around in the room where the other people are, and see them, and they’ll be able to see you. Yeah? It’s either right now, or right around the corner. Right?

[1:03:46] Well this is good for dharma, because this means pretty soon I can stay home. [laughter] In my meditation hut. As you noticed, I’m not hugging many people these days. I don’t want you to get used to hugging. Until you get the suit, and then we can have a nice friendly hug. [laughter] But I’m not doing much hugging, because I want you to be satisfied with just visual and auditory, visual and auditory. So if I’m sitting in my little meditation hut in Santa Barbara: oh yeah! It’s good enough. [Alan laughs] Visual. Audio. Got it. Then I finally get to be a tulku. [Alan laughs] Emanate tulkus from the pure land of Santa Barbara.

[1:04:25] So thus, this is post-meditative, we’re going to wrap this up soon. “So, thus, when you have practiced repeatedly, and have understood the lack of self of the person found in your mindstream…” There is another saying from the Condensed Perfection of Wisdom, and this is where we expand, yeah. “Know that all sentient beings exist as the self exists.” The parallels are magnificent here. Satipatthana sutta. I love going back to the ground. The Pali Canon. The earth. The foundation. Four applications of mindfulness. Remember? Body, feelings, mental states, and phenomena. And how do you proceed in this investigation, because it’s way, way beyond bare attention. That’s baby steps. It’s diaper steps, if all you’re doing is bare attention. Then you get into the main flow of it, oh it’s immensely more sophisticated and profound than that. And how do you do, you contemplate your body as the body internally. You see the body as a body, not as you. And not as “my” body. You see the body as a body. That’s all it is. Mary Kay’s body is no more mine than my body is mine. Except that we’re conceptually not designating. If she were my slave – you now, old fashioned times – if she were my slave literally, you know like we had 200 years ago, I could say her body is my body I can do anything I like with it. And slaveowners did. It’s mine, it’s like my cell phone, my body, like so. Then it would be, but happily we’re out of that age. But that body is no more mine than this body. It’s just a body. So you see the body as the body internally. You recognize: huh, nobody’s home. This is just a body. A body. There’s no owner, there’s no one here, there’s no one home, there’s no me, there’s no mine. Just a body. Like liver is liver. Blood is blood. That’s it. No romance, just liver. Brain cells, skin. Just skin. That’s it. See the body as the body internally.

[1:06:32] And then you see the body as the body externally. Oh! Every body is just a body. That’s not him, it doesn’t belong to him, it’s not a person. It’s just a body. Just A body. Examine the body internally, examine the body externally, you examine the body internally and externally. You see how your body interacts, influences other bodies and they influence yours. Brilliant. And then you go for feelings, mental phenomena, mental events, and then phenomena at large. He’s doing the same thing here. When you’ve really taken, you’ve rested at home and you’ve done this analysis with respect to yourself – because that’s the most important one, because that’s where we’re deluded all the time. I’m not deluded about Mary Kay that much, because she’s not filling my attention most of the time. But myself! I am where I am, I go where I go. And so as you gain insight into the emptiness of your own self, and you see that you’re just a standard issue human being – you’re no less a self, more a self than anybody else – then the dominoes fall. As you see the emptiness of your self, then oh! Oh my goodness. There’s a lot of us. All sentient beings alike. Everyone, everyone under the same analysis. That was big.

[1:07:54] “Know that all sentient beings exist as the self exists,” which means they do exist as the self exists, and they don’t exist as the self doesn’t exist. And then he goes – in these two lines he goes beyond that – “know that all phenomena exist as all sentient beings exist.” You see how it does? You do for yourself as a person, a sentient being. Then you apply this to all other sentient beings, suddenly they’re all empty, and your way of viewing them has to radically shift. Has to radically shift. And then as with sentient beings, so with everything else: trees, plants, elementary particles, galaxies, planets, and so forth. Everything else. The dominoes fell from the inside out. The Death Star has now blown up all the way.

[1:08:41] “So for the purpose of demonstrating the way to meditate on the lack of self in other persons and phenomena, the root text explains.” And that’s where we will stop. That was a lot! We didn’t cover a lot of the text but, uhm, this will keep us busy for 24 hours, or 22. And that is, keep on coming back, just keep on going deeper. Don’t expect to be really good at it the first time you try. Because we’re not going to make this complicated. I could start citing Tsongkhapa and Nagarjuna and Chantrikirti and all the complex reasonings. But that’s not the Mahamudra route. The Mahamudra route is “that was simple, go deep.” Right? Go deep. And all your intellectual qualms: don’t do anything that you think is foolish, but do examine with this very reasonable mode of inquiry. How are you present? How do you appear? How do you conceive of or apprehend your self? How? And is this a valid hypothesis: that in fact you are conceptually designating your self upon phenomena that are not and never have been and never will be you. Right? So you start there, and then he’s just given you your marching orders. When you’re out marching off your cushion and you’re out and about: [Tibetan sentence] “between sessions, act as if you are an illusory being.” Or another phrase, way of doing it is “act as if you are already dead.” [Laughter] Very useful. I’ve tried it. Very very useful. If you’re dead you never get insulted. Never feel superior to other people. You never feel you’re really there. You know, in The Sixth Sense, the little boy says “I see dead people”. You’re one of the dead people. You know! You’re just an appearance, nothing more. You’re the plantain tree with no core. You’re the mirage, you’re the reflection of the moon. You appear and you’re not there. And if you’re ready for that, it’s just… There’s that phrase, as soon as I heard it, it lingered in my mind as it did for many other people: The Unbearable Lightness of Being. That book and the movie? Cool, yeah? Isn’t that cool? Unbearable and kind of delicious like your mind is going to just, like your head’s going to explode. Unbearable like Wow! Lightness like [breath sound], being [breath sound]. Kind of like that! I don’t really know what I’m talking about, but I have a sense maybe that wasn’t ridiculous. [Alan laughs]

Olaso! So not too bad. Enjoy your day. Post-meditative experience, here we come!

Transcribed by James French

Revised by Veerle Wauters

Final edition by Rafael C. Giusti

Transcript formatted and posted on the website of the course by Rafael C. Giusti

Discussion

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